


A Dire Contagion

by EnsignAdano



Category: Secret History - Donna Tartt
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Coronavirus, Crack, Gen, Humor, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Bacchanal (Secret History), Quarantine, i have no idea where i'm going with this... yet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:42:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25430101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnsignAdano/pseuds/EnsignAdano
Summary: When Hampden College is shut down for the Coronavirus, the six members of its Greek class, against their better wishes, are forced apart and sent home for the rest of the semester. But, as technophobic as they are, Julian isn’t going to let a little virus get in the way of their class.The students—normally stuck in the worlds of ancient Athens, Troy, and Sparta—are forced into the twenty-first century and must learn to navigate online learning, Twitter doomscrolling, and quarantine stir-craziness. But at the same time, some of them are hatching a plan, a continuation of a scheme from last semester unbeknownst to Richard, that may change their dynamic forever.
Comments: 13
Kudos: 32





	1. Monday, March 23, 2020

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this in May and am publishing it now in July. The story itself starts in March. So you can already tell that this won't be updated strictly in real time/chronologically -- the date at which each chapter takes place is noted at the top.
> 
> This will be a series of vignettes about the Greek class' life under quarantine, strung together by an overarching plot/story arc. I haven't written out the whole story yet like I usually do, so there's no set-in-stone updating schedule, for which I apologize. Please enjoy what is here so far, though; I'll try to update as often as possible!
> 
> Also, embarrassingly, when I started writing this fic I had never actually used Zoom. My school used Google Meet for distance learning, and on Google Meet the teacher can be booted out or log out while leaving the students in the meeting, while I don't think that's possible in Zoom now that I've actually used it. However, meetings without the teacher are plot-relevant here, so I'm leaving them in. Just imagine it's a modern AU where everything is the same except Zoom is sliiiightly more like Google Meet.
> 
> Finally, I can't start this fic without paying homage to the fic that gave me the idea for it -- [basha's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/basha/pseuds/basha) Dead Poets Society fic [my stars shine darkly over me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23417029), which in turn was inspired by [ConsiderableColors'](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConsiderableColors/pseuds/ConsiderableColors) fic [Would You Lie With Me And Just Forget The World?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23384890). Both excellent fics gave me the idea to do something like them for The Secret History, wondering how the Hampden students would react to being quarantined during the pandemic. My idea ended up much less angsty and much more silly. You can decide for yourself whether or not that's a good thing.

The definition of frustration had to be watching a bunch of students who didn’t quite grasp the fact that they weren’t living in Ancient Greece—or at the very least the Romantic era—trying to figure out a Zoom call.

Bunny was alternating between the video chat itself, his phone, and what was clearly a browser game in another tab, judging by the reflection in his glasses and his gaze not being directed anywhere near the camera. Julian had a naïvely fascinated expression on his face as he pressed different buttons with seeming abandon, turning his mic and his camera off and back on, changing his background, and once exiting the call entirely. And the whole ordeal was underscored by constant, tuneless humming, which seemed to have no identifiable origin until it was joined by restless finger tapping and Richard realized it was Francis, succumbing to his nervous habits. In response, Bunny yelled at him to turn his mic off, and Francis reacted with surprise that one could even _do_ that. In short, it was chaos.

“Where are we?” Camilla was saying as she frowned at the screen. She and Charles were crowded around a single laptop, sharing the same pair of earbuds with one bud in each of their ears. “Charles, I don’t see our faces. Where are we?”

“We’re right here, Milly,” Charles said, jostling his sister as he reached for the trackpad on their laptop. “See? Right h—“ And their image suddenly disappeared.

Bunny, meanwhile, checked his phone for what seemed like approximately the seventy-third time, frowning. “Okay, can someone send Henry the meeting link _again?_ ”

Francis said something unintelligible—his lips were moving up and down, but no sound came out. Richard was confused until his eyes flicked down to the corner of Francis’ screen, where an icon indicated his muted mic. Bunny noticed at the same time Richard did, and was gearing up for a good old-fashioned yelling when Francis hurriedly turned his video off, then back on, and finally his mic back on. “I _said_ ,” he repeated, “did Henry get the link in the first place?”

This was met with silence. No one was sure of the answer—no one was quite sure of anything regarding Henry and technology of any kind. While the whole group was at least a little anachronistic and tech-averse, Henry was the most of them all. He didn’t own a computer or a phone, and he did all his work by hand. This proved to be a problem when it was announced that Hampden was shutting down due to the COVID-19 pandemic and that all classes would be conducted online for the remainder of the semester. Henry was not receptive to the idea, yelling that technology and the Internet were the root of most, if not all, modern-day problems and that if he wanted to do ‘distance learning,’ he’d keep writing out his assignments by hand and send them to Julian in the goddamn mail. Julian was sympathetic to Henry’s plight, being a bit of a technophobe himself—it was the year 2020 and he still considered ATMs a delightfully novel invention—but, at the same time, he admitted that he still wanted to keep giving face-to-face lectures. And the only way they could do that during a global pandemic and worldwide social distancing was through Zoom.

The last day of school before Hampden closed was spent going to the nearest cell phone store and buying Henry an iPhone that was a few years out of date, but functional enough. The crew had set it up accordingly, downloaded Zoom onto it, added Henry’s new number into the collective Greek class group chat, and then spent a fruitless few hours trying to explain to Henry how it worked. He had no interest in any kind of customization (with the sole exception of installing a Greek keyboard), and he just barely grasped the concept of texting. No one had received any contact from him in the week since Hampden had let out, but they were sure he wouldn’t miss a class with Julian, even if it was virtual. The only trouble was, they didn’t know if he knew how to _access_ that class, and they had no way to contact him.

“Did anyone send the link to his Hampden school email?” Richard tried.

“I did,” said Camilla, who had reappeared on the screen along with Charles. “Three times. Still no reply.”

“And I’ve texted him directly _and_ through the group chat,” said Charles with an expression of disgust.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” said Bunny, rolling his eyes and picking up his phone in one swift motion. He read aloud as he typed: “ _Henry, get your ass over here_ _or else I am going to_ —“

At that moment, a new participant popped up in the meeting—and sure enough, it was Henry, or at least an extreme close-up of Henry. His face was pressed right up against the screen of his phone, and his mouth was right next to his microphone, so his voice was unbearably loud and crackled as he spoke.

“Hello?” he said. “Is this working, is this Zoom? Am I on Zoom?”

“Yes!” chorused the Greek class, relieved, but simultaneously cringing and making hasty moves to turn down the volume.

Henry pulled away from his phone so he could see his classmates’ faces. “And you are all here? Talking to me? Right now?” With each statement, he grew more and more awed.

“No, this is a recording we all took valuable time out of our day to make, just to fool you,” said Bunny sarcastically. “Of _course_ we’re here!”

“Incredible,” said Henry with wonder and what sounded like fear. The view from his camera went dark as he stroked the lens reverently.

Julian smiled. “Hello, Henry,” he said kindly. “And now that everyone has finally arrived, shall we begin our discussion? How are we all doing in these strange, strange times?” His tone was friendly and paternal, but also a little like a corporate email.

One by one, they told him. The twins were living in their apartment; Francis was in Boston, Henry in St. Louis, and Bunny in Connecticut. Not all of them were completely alone, like Richard was. The twins had each other, and Bunny had his huge family, whom he had apparently told, in no uncertain terms, that they were not allowed in his room during his Zoom meetings or his gaming sessions (the latter referring to something Richard did not know or particularly want to know about).

Julian’s question carried with it a tinge of melancholy for what they weren’t—together. The melancholy was only heightened by the fact that, before the school was shut down, they had had a chance to be. One day, the six of them had gone to ask of the Hampden administration whether they could stay together in a place like, say, a hypothetical house in the country hypothetically owned by one of their families. The answer was a resounding _no_. Even in the face of their protests and rebuttals—they wouldn’t spread the virus, they already spent all their time together anyway—the administration returned the same answer: no. Even so, for a while they considered just sneaking off to Francis’ country house anyway and living there in secret, without telling the administration, until the situation blew over, until Charles told them that Hampden administration could track their locations using something called “IP addresses” on their computer. No one was quite sure what this meant or how it worked, Charles included, but it sounded suspect enough for the group to reluctantly drop the idea.

Of course, there was also the matter of flattening the curve and all that. As, ostensibly, a former medical student, Richard understood the importance of stay-at-home orders and how not to spread the virus. But personally, he would have happily contracted COVID-19 if it meant being able to live out the remainder of the semester—and maybe even the summer!—with his companions. Long, lazy spring days occasionally spent doing homework, but more often drinking, smoking, playing games, enjoying nature. Losing themselves in simple pleasures and complex conversations and, most of all, their own company in the endless days stretching ahead of them, unburdened by the impending return to school and to reality. All that had made his fall semester at Hampden the most magical of his life—but even _more_ so. That, unfortunately, was never to be because of the college’s petty administrative bureaucracy—and, okay, by the _very necessary_ ideas of social distancing and flattening the curve—and very often during the first few days in quarantine, Richard found himself missing Hampden so much that it manifested itself as a physical pain in his chest, filling it with yearning, threatening to burst.

For his part, he was living in an apartment not too far from Hampden that he’d rented, and was relying on some of his leftover income from working for Dr. Roland to pay for his expenses for the time being. After that ran out, he wasn’t sure what he’d do. Perhaps he’d tutor schoolchildren over Zoom, or let people commission short pieces of writing from him; try and get money from fellow millennials and Gen Z-ers just as cash-strapped as he. Anything to avoid flat-out begging, borrowing—he was still too proud for that. Too stubborn. Too stupid. Whatever you wanted to call it.

Henry was describing the intellectual pursuits he had undergone to occupy his mind during the long, languorous stretches of quarantine. “I attempted to reread _The Iliad_ ,” he was saying, “in an attempt to get my mind off of all that is happening…”

Julian nodded. “In uncertain times, it is often a good idea to reacquaint yourself with the most seminal works of literature.”

Henry looked down, appearing almost abashed. “Well…my mind seems to have somehow blocked out the fact that _The Iliad_ begins with a _plague_.”

This was met with a few hesitant smiles from most of the Greek class, who weren’t sure if this was an acceptable thing to laugh at Henry about, and loud hoots of laughter from Bunny, who didn’t care.

Julian smiled knowingly. “ _Latona’s son a dire contagion spread, / And heaped the camp with mountains of the dead,_ ” he recited, quoting from the Alexander Pope translation. His eyes shone as the poetic words, in their familiar meter, tumbled from his mouth. “Perhaps the impression in your mind that you had of the Iliad, Henry, focused on different events. There are, after all, arguably many more memorable scenes, and it is common for the mind to overlook inciting incidents in favor of the consequences thereof. But what is rereading if not looking at the text with the benefit of experience you didn’t have before? This is but an opportunity to connect the classics with our own lives in an unprecedentedly relevant way.” His eyes shone, as if he had been waiting for this moment—a global pandemic that was sort of like the one in the _Iliad_ —all his life.

“ _Latona’s son a dire contagion spread_ ,” Julian repeated slowly, enunciating each word. “Latona’s son, of course, being Apollo. Does anyone here believe that perhaps the current virus plaguing us is nothing more than the vengeance of the gods? For something we have done wrong in modern society; for all the sins we have committed and continue to commit every day?”

Henry nodded furiously in agreement; everyone else leaned in, fascinated by Julian’s lecture. Richard leaned forward too, but in the back of his mind, Twitter buzzwords flitted about as a response to Julian’s words— _eco-fascism_ and _misinformation_ and _problematic_ —and he smiled ruefully at the thought that, had his lecture been broadcasted to the greater Internet community, Julian would definitely be _cancelled_. If only they knew of his genius! Maybe he should suggest to Julian that he start a YouTube channel.

“ _And heap’d the camp with mountains of the dead,_ ” Julian went on. “Listen to Pope’s beautiful imagery. Buckley, meanwhile, goes the literal route in his translation, and notes that the original Greek implies, ‘and the people kept dying’.” He hummed. “How many people, worldwide, have died from the coronavirus? Can anyone look it up?”

Charles got right on it—“Today’s March 23, right?”—and in just a second reported back. “The reports differ slightly,” he said. “Worldometers tells me that there have been 14,739 deaths as of yesterday, but according to ourworldindata.org there have only been 12,966.”

“I’d watch yourself with your use of _only_ , Charles,” said Julian. “Thirteen thousand deaths is certainly nothing to sneeze at. The gods are truly wreaking their vengeance.

“But for what?” he continued. “In the original Iliad, of course, the cause was simple, Agamemnon dishonoring the priest Chryses when he attempted to free his captive daughter Chryseïs. But this, this is no simple plague on the battlefields of Troy. This is on a much grander scale, and it stands to reason that, as such, so must be the cause. We could point to any one of the atrocities of the modern age, whether individually or collectively, as the cause for this destructive wrath. But wouldn’t it make far more sense to look at society as a whole as the cause for punishment? We have strayed so far from the Ancient Greek ordeal, severed our connections to the gods. We have repressed that whi—a—tr—“

His face became pixilated and his speech cut in and out, until eventually he disappeared from the screen entirely.

Everyone blinked, disoriented, for a second, staring at the empty space where Julian’s face used to be.

“Oooh, Julian just got booted out,” Bunny said, his eyes gleaming. “If he’s not back in 15 minutes, we’re legally allowed to leave!”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how that works,” said Camilla.

“You know, technically you can leave anytime,” Richard said. “You could just say your Wi-Fi stopped working, or Zoom malfunctioned and booted you out, or just that you accidentally closed the program. We’re all unfamiliar enough with the technology that they’d accept that.”

He didn’t realize the error of his ways until he saw the maniacal grin from Bunny and the absolute death glares from everyone else.

“You have opened my eyes, Richard, old man,” said Bunny, his eyes wide and his cheeks flushed.

“I was speaking hypothetically,” Richard said, but his weak defense did not lessen the death glares in the least.

Just then, Julian’s face reappeared, flustered and harried and still looking a little pixilated. “I do apologize for that interruption,” he said. “It appears that this technology is quite mercurial, and it will take us perhaps a bit longer than expected to get used to it.”

Henry nodded sagely.

“Now then,” said Julian, “remind me what we were discussing on the last day before school closed.”

“The Theban plays of Sophocles,” said Camilla, brushing her hair out of her eyes.

“Right,” Julian said. “We were contemplating their overall views on the nature of fate and free will, and today we can continue that conversation by remembering how that fits in with other Greek texts and myths, such as that of Perseus. And if we’d like, we can throw the _Iliad_ into the mix, too.” He winked (possibly at Henry, though given the nature of the video call it was hard to tell), his eyes twinkling. “Now…I hope we’re all ready to leave the phenomenal world and enter into the sublime?”


	2. Monday, March 23, 2020 (continued)

“We have already discussed the conditionality, or lack thereof, of the oracles delivered to both Laius and Oedipus,” Julian said, “but what about the events leading up to that which was predicted? While oracles exist to be fulfilled, they have no control over the way in which they come to be. Thus, are free will and predestination mutually exclusive, or not?” He paused, letting the question linger as the six students sat, riveted, hanging on to his every word. Then, abruptly, he straightened. “That is the question I want you to explore in tonight’s assignment. 3 pages, in Greek, supported by evidence from this and other texts we have discussed in this class. Please mail them to the address I gave you before school closed.”

Richard turned his mic on. “Wouldn’t it be easier to just scan and email them?”

The looks that the other members of the class gave him ranged from puzzled and quizzical to absolutely scandalized.

“Never mind, I’ll just send them by mail,” he muttered, his face burning, and turned off his mic.

Julian exchanged a few final pleasantries with the students and then signed off. Bunny also left the call, saying he had an important match on some online game that Richard didn’t care to know the name of. That left Henry, Francis, Camilla, Charles, and Richard.

Richard tried to contain his joy, but it was difficult. This was what he had been longing for since he shut his apartment door for the first time on the first day of quarantine—quality time with his fellow students, without Julian’s supervision. (His fellow students minus Bunny, of course, but it wasn’t Bunny’s fault he had his video game thing, which Richard assumed was important.) All this time, his heart had yearned for the return of the magic of that first semester—the group having long, meandering conversations that led nowhere in particular; acting on whims with minimal consideration of the consequences; just hanging out. Being in one another’s company, as they had every day when school was still open, before class and at each other’s residences and in the country house. It was the purest form of companionship, in Richard’s opinion, and he desperately wanted to somehow reclaim it even when they were scattered throughout the country in their homes. Hell, at this point he’d avidly listen to the most incredibly boring of arguments between Henry and Francis on the exact nature of something-or-other in some obscure Greek text, as long as it meant he was here, and the group was together, and everything was okay, as back to normal as it could possibly be.

He waited eagerly for a natural segue into the beginning of a scintillating discussion, as had so often happened after Julian’s classes. But instead, Henry, Charles, Camilla, and Francis looked uncomfortably at each other while exchanging the most basic of pleasantries. They asked each other how they had been doing and where they were staying, largely rehashing information they had already shared in class. Occasionally, one of them would make a feeble effort to include Richard in the conversation—“And what are _you_ doing with yourself at home, Richard?”—but it always seemed strained, unnatural, even token. Maybe he was simply projecting, but he definitely sensed something wrong.

Perhaps the format of the Zoom call was making his classmates shy? But that didn’t make sense, Richard reasoned; they hadn’t seemed any more reserved than usual when they were conversing with Julian, and they had had plenty of time to get used to the video call format over the past hour. Maybe, then, they were hiding something?

No. That was ridiculous. What would they have to hide?

“Richard,” said Camilla cautiously, after a long, uncomfortably drawn-out pause, “don’t you have anywhere to be?”

“Me? No,” said Richard. “I mean, I have a French lecture tomorrow morning, but nothing else today. I could stay here all day if I wanted to.”

At that, the others collectively seemed to deflate, leaving him puzzled and hurt. They sent each other questioning, consternated glances, and another long silence ensued.

“For God’s sake,” Charles finally snapped. “You know what? Screw it. Let’s just tell him. It’s not like he’s gonna share it with anyone.”

“Tell me what?” asked Richard.

Henry sighed. “Richard, do you remember last fall when we studied bacchanals, Dionysiac frenzy, the loss of the self and the beauty thereof?”

“Yes,” said Richard impatiently. What did that have to do with anything?

“Well,” he said, “the four of us have decided to carry it out for ourselves. We’re going to have a social-distancing bacchanal.”

The idea was so ridiculous that for a second, Richard only blinked. It was all he could do not to laugh.

“You must be joking,” he said.

“No,” said Henry as the other students shook their heads.

“You’re holding an Ancient Greek bacchanal…” He paused. “Over _Zoom_?”

“We’ve had the idea for a while,” Francis put in.

“Not the social-distancing part of it, of course,” Henry was quick to add. “We could never have predicted that, nor the circumstances that preceded it. But we have been attempting, in various ways, to perform the rituals since last fall.”

Richard was silent, which Henry took as a cue to continue. “I had been obsessed with the idea since Julian first discussed it,” he said. “The idea of losing the self, of transcending the conscious boundaries of time and space, held tremendous appeal for me, and I scoured the Greek texts to try and discern the necessary components to enter into that state, to perform the ritual. Over the course of the fall semester, the five of us tried everything—yet the mystery still eluded us. Unfortunately, all of our attempts were failures.”

He launched into a description, punctuated by the other students’ occasional additions, of their various tries at reproducing the sacred rituals from two thousand years ago—drink, fasting, prayer, drugs, and other things Henry had gleaned from his reading and translation of the Ancient Greek fragments. “We seemed to be missing some crucial component,” he said, “a critical variable that would properly turn us over to the Dionysian state that we coveted. But before we could properly discover what it was and implement it, the seasons turned, and it became too cold for us to continue. We were forced to put our plans on hold. And just when it became spring and the weather was warm again…” His expression turned steely. “The virus struck, and we were sent home, separated from each other, unable to do anything.”

Richard couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy for Henry and the others, even though he still wasn’t quite sure exactly what it was they were _doing_ , or why they wanted to do it. He stayed silent, waiting for Henry to continue.

“But,” said Henry, leaning forward tantalizingly, “in the intervening winter I continued to study the texts, mull over what we could be missing. And I think I have it.”

“What is it?” Richard asked, morbidly curious despite himself.

Henry paused to reach out of frame and grab some alcoholic beverage whose label Richard could not see. He took a swig, then continued.

“Julian has told us before,” he said, “that it is impossible to truly understand the _Divine Comedy_ without first _becoming_ a Christian, even for just a few hours. I believe the same principle applies here. We must not view this pursuit in a scholarly nor a voyeuristic light; we must instead turn ourselves over completely to the ritual, the religious aspect. And I hypothesize that such absolute devotion transcends the boundaries of distance—in other words, if we do it right, it doesn’t matter if we hold the bacchanal all together at Hampden or in our separate homes. In fact, perhaps in this case—“ he looked almost rueful—“modern technology has only multiplied the opportunities available to us for connection.”

“Took a lot of convincing to get that idea in his head,” said Francis.

“Yes,” said Henry. “I suppose that not _all_ technology is the inexorable cause of anti-intellectualism and the death of society.” Excitement shone on his face. “This may very well be the start of a new generation of not only scholarly pursuit, but also of worship. We are taking the rituals described by Plato all those thousands of years ago and rejuvenating them, giving them new life.”

A long silence followed as his words hung in the air. Richard, quite frankly, was at a loss. He had no idea what to make of the idea of having a bacchanal, and he still wasn’t sure whether he was invited, or how to ask without being rude.

Instead, he asked, “You said _the four of us_. What about Bunny? Isn’t he a part of this, too?”

“Perhaps he never was,” said Henry. “He never seemed to be, anyway. I suspect he was never fully committed to the rituals, baths, and fasting that we underwent. And he hasn’t shown any interest in it since our failed attempts last semester; he didn’t send a single message in the bacchanal-specific group chat. If he wasn’t fully committed to our previous attempts, I can’t imagine he’d be any more so in this next stage.” He leaned back in his chair. “If he wants to participate, he can, but if he doesn’t, that’s his choice. And, frankly, we don’t see it as much of a loss.”

“Does he know?” asked Richard. “About…this? This next stage?”

“No,” said Charles. “Can you imagine if he did? He wouldn’t be able to keep his mouth shut.”

“We made a new bacchanal-specific group chat,” added Camilla. “Without him.”

The strange incongruity and callousness of these words almost made Richard want to laugh, but the rest of the group looked so deathly serious that he bit it back. Besides, he still had one more thing pulling at his mind. “And…why didn’t you tell me before?”

“You were new; we hardly knew each other,” answered Henry. “You would have thought us crazy.” He smiled humorlessly. “You don’t know how many times last semester you nearly caught us.”

“Anyway, now that we’ve told you all this,” Charles said, “I guess we have to make you part of this too.”

“Yes,” said Henry. “I suppose so.” He was silent for a second, then added, “I suppose he was part of this all along.” He took a long swig of his drink and offered no further explanation.

It wasn’t exactly the glowing endorsement Richard had hoped for, but it was something. The thing was, he still wasn’t exactly sure what it was he had gotten into.

The group said their goodbyes and logged out of Zoom, but Richard’s mind was still racing, trying to make sense of the new revelations. For the rest of the day he lay on his bed, mindlessly scrolling through Twitter, the constant doom and gloom from the world at large pinging off his brain like tiny bullets, as his mind continued to churn with what the students had told him. Finally, exhaustion overtook him and he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Imagine "You're holding an Ancient Greek bacchanal... over Zoom?" in the same tone as "You built a time machine... out of a DeLorean?"
> 
> As always, kudos & comments always appreciated!


	3. Tuesday, March 24-Wednesday, March 25, 2020

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise, dark academics! I bet you thought you'd seen the last of me!
> 
> School started for me last week, and I'm doing this semester entirely online, over -- you guessed it -- Zoom. So now I can no longer say that I'm unfamiliar with Zoom, and the shenanigans that my classmates get up to might provide some inspiration for Greek class shenanigans for this fic! Then again, I might also not get around to _writing_ said shenanigans immediately because, y'know, I have school. But no matter what happens, I'll try my best to keep writing!

When the alarm on Richard’s phone woke him up the next morning, he shut it off only to see several new messages filling up his Notification Center. Squinting through the haze of half-sleep, he read through some of the previous messages and checked the senders—Henry, Charles, Camilla, and Francis—before realizing that he had been added to what Camilla had called the bacchanal-specific group chat. Specifically, the one for the new phase. The one without Bunny.

His hazy, sleepy mind had no idea what to do with this information, so he did nothing with it. He tossed his phone aside, rationalizing that he’d deal with the group chat later, then went to the bathroom to make himself presentable for his upcoming French lecture over Zoom. A few minutes before the lecture was slated to begin, he reached for his phone and put it on Do Not Disturb. Laforgue would not be happy if he heard it buzzing all through the call.

Several hours later, the lecture was finished, and Richard had completed his French assignment (which, thankfully, he could type up and submit by email) and gotten a good ways into his Greek essay when he realized he never had turned his phone back on. When he did, one hundred and seventy-six new notifications were staring him in the face—nearly all of them from the Bunny-less bacchanal group chat. Or, at least, Richard guessed they were. The chat’s actual name was “athens showdown 2: elektra boogaloo,” which Richard assumed had a long story behind it that he was not in on.

As he began to scroll up to backread, he was alerted to some new messages popping up on the screen one by one:

**_Francis:_ ** _did anyone remember to add richard to the chat??_

**_Charles:_ ** _i did yesterday_

**_Francis:_ ** _ah_

**_Francis:_ ** _just wondering because he’s said,, like,, nothing all day_

**_Henry:_ ** _He has been conspicuously silent._

**_Charles:_ ** _ah well_

**_Camilla:_ ** _Didn’t he say he had a French lecture today? That’s probably where he is_

**_Charles:_ ** _yeah that makes sense_

Richard's heart seized up with possibly-irrational fear—they were _talking about him_. His absence was _something conspicuous_. His anxiety kicked into high gear at the idea, the mortifying ordeal of being known. What was he going to do? This was a mistake. Staying after class yesterday to be told about the bacchanal was a mistake. Transferring to Hampden was a mistake. He should have just stayed in California and run away to live among the redwoods as a feral half-person for the rest of his days.

Okay. Okay. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself down. He didn’t _really_ want to live among the redwoods as a feral half-person, he reassured himself. And the group chat didn’t have read receipts, so no one knew he was there, reading their messages—he knew the others were talking about him, but they didn’t know he knew they knew. He briefly considered just jumping into the conversation with a message along the lines of “hello friends I am here”—but no, it would seem too stalkerish if he just happened to show up when they were discussing him, as if he’d been creepily lurking the whole time. No, that absolutely would not do. He exited out of the messaging app, resolving that he would wait a few minutes and _then_ send his inaugural text, to make it seem more like coincidence. Until then, he decided to take a break from his schoolwork and see if anything good was on Netflix.

Unfortunately, he got distracted by Netflix and never took his phone off Do Not Disturb, so “a few minutes” soon turned into “two hours.”

By the time he finally returned to the group chat, Henry, Charles, Camilla, and Francis had moved on to other topics, and there was a natural lull in the conversation. The last message in the chat had been sent a short enough time ago that Richard’s sudden entry into the conversation wouldn’t be totally random, but a long enough time ago that his message wouldn’t be interrupting an existing conversation. Richard was aware he was overthinking, but he didn’t care. This was the perfect time to send a super-casual _hey_.

His fingers were poised over the keyboard already. Yes, this was perfect. This was completely natural. He was killing it, he was practically a _pro_ at this “social interactions” thing—

**_Charles:_ ** _okay WHERE is richard_

God dammit.

Richard sighed and decided to just bite the bullet, typing this message and sending it before he could change his mind:

**_Richard:_ ** _Hello friends I am here_

**_Francis:_ ** _there he is_

**_Camilla:_ ** _hi Richard!!_

**_Camilla:_ ** _We thought we’d scared you off lmao_

**_Richard:_ ** _No, here I am :)_

Then, next to Henry’s name emerged a three-dot typing notification. It went on for an uncomfortably long time, during which everyone else stayed silent, and Richard’s palms were beginning to sweat by the time Henry’s lengthy, perfectly-punctuated message finally appeared.

“Hello, Richard,” it read. “I am glad you are participating in this endeavor in which we have decided to trust you. If you check your Hampden school email account, you will find that, upon my request, Charles has shared a Google document with you that contains much of the information and notes from our previous attempts to replicate the Ancient Greek bacchanal. I would recommend you read these notes to get caught up, and send a message to this chat with any questions you may have or clarifications you may need.”

Almost immediately, a follow-up message appeared from Charles: “henry… you know you can just say ‘google doc’ instead of ‘google document’ right”

“I will not,” replied Henry.

“ok that’s valid,” typed Francis.

“IT IS NOT VALID,” said Charles. Then came two more messages in quick succession: “NOBODY SAYS ‘GOOGLE DOCUMENT’”, followed by “WHO THE HELL SAYS ‘GOOGLE DOCUMENT’”.

“is doc *not* short for document?????” retorted Francis.

While the two of them continued to argue, Richard took it upon himself to open up his school email and follow the link to a Google Doc owned by Charles, as per Henry’s instructions. There, he found—to his shock and slight dread—over _two hundred pages_ of notes, part in Ancient Greek, part in English. Scattered throughout the text were dates, highlighted passages with comments like “is this significant??” and “from Plato’s _Republic_ —can’t find exact original instance of quote” in the margins, and different text colors, which Richard guessed pertained to each Greek class member adding their own individual comments. Richard’s eyes widened more and more as he scrolled through the document. The class had done all _this_ in one semester? And he hadn’t known about _any_ of it?

Back in the group chat, Francis and Charles‘ argument was still going strong. Interestingly, Richard found as he scrolled up to backread, Henry—who had ostensibly started the debate in the first place through his choice of words—had stayed silent throughout the whole thing, seemingly just watching as the other two boys battled it out.

“it’s NOT ambiguous,” Francis had furiously typed, in response to a point Charles had brought up. “you don’t see google doc being short for google *doctor*, do you??” Followed a few seconds later by, “or google *doxxing*???”

“Phrases I didn’t expect to hear when I woke up this morning: 1) google doxxing”, wrote Camilla.

“or google *doctopus*???” added Francis.

“doctopus,” wrote Charles, and Richard could _hear_ the disdain in his voice through just that one written word.

“That’s phrase #2 I didn’t expect to hear,” said Camilla.

“yeah you’re just digging yourself into a hole there bud,” said Charles.

Richard‘s fingers were moving before he even realized it. He typed, “Isn’t there a comic book character named doc ock/doctor octopus??” And before he could second-guess himself, he hit Send.

“SEE RICHARD GETS ME,” came the reply from Francis—followed by, “I HAVE NO IDEA WHO THAT IS THAT HE MENTIONED. BUT STILL.”

“how do you know about comics richard?” asked Charles, and maybe it was paranoia, but Richard could swear he detected a hint of suspicion in his words.

Yes, Richard had spent some of his childhood in comic book stores—the quiet, empty venues served as refuges for him, where he was unlikely to be found and picked on—before he graduated to more sophisticated reading material. And, as such, he was fairly familiar with the adventures of Spider-Man and his adversaries, including Doc Ock. Plus, he had seen _Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse_ along with the rest of the world back in 2018. But he wasn’t about to admit any of that to the Greek class. He’d been very careful, up to this point, not to reveal too much information about his upbringing that made it look anything less than perfectly, classically elite. Comics were surely far too plebeian, too low, for a member of Hampden’s Greek class.

To avoid further questioning about his background, Richard hurriedly typed, “BTW thank you for the link Henry! I’ll be sure to look through it today or tomorrow.” After a second’s deliberation, he changed the last few words to “whenever I can,” then back to “today or tomorrow,” then to “when I can,” before paranoia over how long his typing notification had been on the others’ screens made him hit Send.

“You are welcome,” responded Henry. “And yes, please read over the document as soon as possible. We would welcome any contributions you may have.”

“oh, NOW you speak,” wrote Charles. “where were you five minutes ago during the doc debacle?? which, if i may remind you, YOU STARTED???”

But Richard barely took notice of Charles’ irate words. His heart was swelling with the joy of validation. Henry would welcome his contributions! He was part of the group! _Really_ part of it, part of the official inner circle now!

That was all the motivation he needed to switch back to Google Docs right then and there and start reading all the bacchanal notes again, from the beginning. He supposed that, somewhere in the back of his mind, he had been expecting pages upon pages of endlessly dry, tedious scholarly analysis—but, to his surprise, he found that the writing was actually quite interesting and readable. The text was in different colors, each one pertaining to a different person, so the reader could differentiate between what each person had written. And although the document had no key to signify which color text belonged to which student, Richard found that he could easily tell—their individual writing styles easily shone through, both in English and in Ancient Greek. In fact, he found it even easier to tell after having read their texts in the group chat, even though their notes weren’t quite as casual and didn’t play so fast and loose with the rules of grammar.

And he was fascinated by what he read: debates between students with alternating lines of color, showing the battles of different viewpoints. The way some colors continually returned to the same subjects, showcasing that person’s infatuation with that particular topic. Ancient Greek quotes in black with a single “Thought this was interesting” underneath in dark purple, which Richard had figured out was Camilla’s color, or cornflower blue, which was Henry’s.

The only color whose corresponding author he could not immediately identify was a bright cyan. Whoever had chosen this color wrote with occasional spelling errors, and their words took on a frequent belligerent tone; they often added comments underneath paragraphs of debate to the effect of “what does all of this matter?” or “wouldn’t it be easiest to just say so-and-so and be done with it?” Richard was puzzled until he realized, with a pang, that this mystery person was _Bunny_. He had nearly forgotten about Bunny’s existence, since he wasn’t in the new group chat and had been excluded from all the discussions about the rejuvenated, socially-distanced bacchanal idea. And when Richard checked the list of people with whom the Google Doc was shared, sure enough, Bunny was no longer on it.

He wasn’t sure how this made him feel. Sure, Bunny was annoying, and his contributions to this document only reinforced that—but to cut him off entirely? Richard knew what exclusion felt like, and it was not a pleasant feeling; he felt his heart squeezing at the very thought of it. He wasn’t sure he would be able to keep news of the new bacchanal from Bunny; he couldn’t help the soft spot he had for the man, and after all, it wasn’t like Bunny had done anything morally wrong, like murder or bribery or anything. As Henry described it, he had just been a little lax at following the rituals. At the same time, the last thing Richard wanted to do was betray the trust of the rest of the Greek class, these people who had just let him into their inner circle, these people whom he admired and trusted and even _loved_.

These thoughts swirling around in his mind were making him uncomfortable, so he did what he did best: shoved them aside and continued reading. He would have taken a drink if he didn’t think it was too early in the day for alcohol—although, upon further reflection, he realized he had no idea what time it actually was, and didn’t really care. But he wanted to be fully sober until he finished the document, at least.

In the notes, interspersed between debates over historical context and analyses of written passages, were the parts that Richard found the most exciting—descriptions of the students’ actual attempts at holding bacchanals. These were always preceded by pages of speculation, ideas thrown out, specific methods to induce the specific state of euphoria, frenzy, loss of self that the class so desperately coveted. Finally, after all of that, there would be arrangements to meet at a specific time and place. And the next morning, they’d be followed by a breakdown of what had worked and what didn’t—usually, most of it consisted of what didn’t—and what to try next. It was like a collaborative journal entry, written by all the people Richard admired most.

One entry, dated October 25, 2019, described an attempt at altering the prayer ritual by adding music to it—specifically, by singing. Throughout the week leading up to that Saturday, the Greek class had scrutinized any and all mentions of music and singing in the ancient texts they had used for reference, all of which was visible in the Google Doc. And that Saturday, their careful planning at last came to fruition. Or, at least, it was supposed to. Henry, writing in blue font, had given a comprehensive account on exactly _how_ that attempt, like all the others before it, had failed; according to him, the five of them had basically just stood in the forest holding hands and singing Greek hymns loudly in broken, off-key voices. Halfway through the night, they had attempted to add alcohol to the ritual, which only made the whole situation worse. “It’s a miracle no one caught us and turned the situation into an embarrassing public spectacle,” Henry had mused.

Francis, in red, suggested that perhaps the _melody_ , as opposed to the lyrics, was more important to the ritual than they had originally surmised; Charles, in yellow, replied that that would be a problem if it were true, since there was no way to accurately discern the melody of the hymns from the fragments of text they had available. Then Camilla, in purple, pointed out that they had mostly been focusing on getting the words and pronunciations right, and maybe next time they should give themselves up to the music more, focus on the emotion of it, the way Charles did when he played Chopin on the piano. The rest of the group had tossed around this idea between them for a while until Charles ended the conversation with a flippant, “well, one thing’s for sure: Bunny’s singing voice is _terrible_ ,” and Bunny’s cyan text interjected, “excuse u I tried my best.”

Richard did a Ctrl-F in the document and discovered that, after that date, there was no more mention of music or singing, which made him sad. He was legitimately invested in that saga and thought Camilla’s idea might hold water. Maybe he’d bring it up at the next lesson with Julian if Bunny didn’t stick around after class, or in the bacchanal-specific group chat the next time it became active.

He read on, riveted by all the adventures of the Greek class, all the different things they had tried in order to induce the bacchanalian frenzy for which they aimed. Reading the document made him feel as if he was right there with them as they bickered and discussed and joked. It made him forget that they were currently separated by hundreds and even thousands of miles, that there was a quarantine and they probably wouldn’t see each other for weeks or even months. It tore him away from the horrible things on the news and on the internet and in the world, and instead deposited him into a world where all that mattered were scholarly and religious pursuits solely for their own sake. At the same time, he was amazed at the ideas that the Greek students had come up with in the space of one semester. He was only sorry he was never a part of this endeavor in the first place. And these two thoughts combined made his heart seize with so much yearning and melancholy that he had to look away from the Google Doc, open up a mediation app, and do a few deep breathing exercises before he felt calm enough to continue reading.

The sky outside was dark by the time he reached the final entry. It dated from the end of November and consisted of the class lamenting their inability to try any more bacchanals outdoors, because of the cold weather and the imminent start of winter break. The final line was in purple—for Camilla—and read, “See you guys in the spring, hopefully!”

Richard stared at the blank space between that line and the bottom of the page for a long time, his mind churning and racing and swirling with all the new information he had received. Finally, he was torn out of his reverie by his stomach growling, signaling to him that he hadn’t eaten anything all day.

But even as he went to the kitchen to fix himself some dinner from the minimal supplies he had—his meal basically consisted of bread, butter, and tea—he still constantly thought about the bacchanal and his classmates’ notes and opinions and all the rituals they had tried. If he was interested before, he was obsessed now.

The topic was the last thing he thought about as he drifted off to sleep that night, the first thing he was reminded of as he woke up the next morning, and the only thing that occupied his mind all throughout that day’s lesson with Julian. For the entire session, he mulled over the entries that he had read, considering their significance in the context of their ultimate goal of the Dionysian bacchanalian frenzy, tying them to quotes and ideas that he recognized from previous classes with Julian and his own readings of Greek literature. He wondered what new things they would try that semester, what he’d add to their collective notes; he thought of what he was now a part of. And perhaps most of all, he kept glancing at Bunny and wondering, _Does he know? Does he suspect I’m hiding something from him at this very moment? Does he know that we all are?_ And was that a good thing or a bad thing?

After Julian logged out of the Zoom call that day, Henry, Charles, Camilla, and Francis subtly straightened, with expectant looks on their faces. Richard imagined he looked much the same way. But their hopes of talking about bacchanal-related matters were dashed when Bunny also stayed on the call.

“I don’t have any tournaments, so I can stick around today!” he explained. He leaned back in his chair, grinning from ear to ear. “So, anything we want to talk about on this fine, fine day? Funny quarantine stories? Anything?”

At this, Richard felt a sudden, inexplicable wave of nausea. He gasped and clutched the table, and a few of the Greek class members squinted in concern, presumably at his image on their screens.

“Are you okay?” asked Francis.

“I’m sorry, I can’t stay today,” Richard said breathlessly. “I’ve got to go.”

“What?” said Henry, looking a bit irritated.

“I’ve got to go,” repeated Richard, and pressed the red Leave button on the Zoom call before he could change his mind.


End file.
